


Cassis Absolute

by lumietta



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Drabble, M/M, ramble, this is really weird idk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-24 16:14:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9769850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumietta/pseuds/lumietta
Summary: Ryan Ross wakes up one morning and leaves the woman he does not love and the house he does not like. He boards a train headed for the seaside and takes his chances against the weather and the baker.'He leaves by the front door and uses the spare key they keep under the terracotta pot that houses a dying plant. The plant is dying because they never moved it into the earth. The black berries that once grew upon it have withered away.'





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is my second fic and I wrote this instead of working on my first one HA 
> 
> this is really weird I don't normally write in first person or in this weird style but whatever

This is where the story starts.

Ryan Ross wakes with a start at 4:30 am on a Thursday morning. He’s had a nightmare, but can’t remember what it was about. As he struggles to still his restless breaths, he ponders what has become of him. He is twenty-five and he is having a mid-life crisis, which most people would mind. Ryan doesn’t. He does not mind because to him it does not matter if he lives past the age of fifty.  
He rolls over to plant a kiss on the cheek of the woman lying next to him, who he does not love. She sleepily snuggles closer into him, and he sighs into her hair as they return to unconsciousness.

This is the reason that at 8:30 am when it’s all cereal spoons and hairdryers and promises of evening plans, Ryan realises something very important. He realises that he is not happy. He is not sad, but he is not happy to be in this house that he does not like with a woman he does not love. Soon, he must marry her. Then, they will have children and buy a dog. She will drink too much wine and he will have an affair with his accountant. The years will stretch, but they will stay together because it’s all they’ve ever known.

He realises that there are only two ways to escape this dim and dismal future:  
1\. He must manage his own taxes and never require the help of an accountant.  
or  
2\. He must leave and change his future himself.

Ryan is bad at math; he decides to take the second option. Once the woman he does not love has left for her job as a ballet instructor at the local studio, he packs a bag that contains his toothbrush, clean underwear, a bar of soap and three worn and dog-eared novels. He takes the case and pats the dog. He leaves by the front door and uses the spare key they keep under the terracotta pot that houses a dying plant. The plant is dying because they never moved it into the earth. The black berries that once grew upon it have withered away.

He walks the five blocks to the subway, buys the most expensive ticket and boards a train the is going to the coast. He likes the sound of that; every great story begins with a journey and every great romance happens by the sea. He thinks back to the woman he has left. He thinks of her face as she returns home with a bottle of chardonnay to find the house empty; he did not leave her a note. 

Ryan did not bring his phone with him. He knows any number he may need, and throughout his life that has only consisted of the digits for the Italian restaurant located five minutes away from the house he has left behind.

Ryan met the woman he does not love at that restaurant. She was his waitress and he tipped her a hundred dollars. He was young and stupid, and thought that the hammering feeling in his chest might be from love. In reality, it was because he had just snorted four lines of coke and he hadn’t slept in three days.

The train arrives at the end of the line. It has taken three hours to get to this point. As Ryan steps onto the platform he can feel the wind that rises off the ocean slap him across the face. He is left with red cheeks and messy hair as he inhales the salt spray. The concrete floor is bleak and grey, matching the sky above. He receives the map of this little town from the kiosk in the station and he sets out.

Despite the wind nipping at his exposed flesh, he feels comfortable. A warmth has settled deep in his belly, and it continues to heat him even as he settles under the shelter of a tree in a small park that is tucked away between the houses. It has begun to rain. Ryan remembers that he liked the rain, liked to dance in his wet clothes and stick his tongue out to catch the droplets like falling stars. He wonders why he ever stopped. The woman who he did not love used to avoid the rain and would pull him inside and down onto the couch, where they would make love without any feeling.

As the rain thins and he begins to walk again, he finds himself in the middle of a deserted street of shops. The smell of warm pastries try to invite him in as he wanders without purpose. He does not know where he is going but he will walk until he does. He continues his path along the dark cobblestoned street as the rain begins again. The only shelter he has now is the opening of a shop, but he takes his time to walk there. Feels the rain drum against his shoulders. Hears the whisper of the Northern wind.

When he reaches the shop, he knows he has completed his journey. Ryan’s feet have led him here for a reason. He enters without hesitation and strides into the warmth of the indoors. The display of houses on the wall attracts his eye and he moves closer to catch the details on each poster.

“Excuse me sir, can I help you?” The young receptionist asks him.

Without even a glance back at her he responds. He raises his finger to the poster of a tiny cottage that overlooks the angry sea.

“I would like this one.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't proof this before so there ya go feel free to correct any mistakes I made

The house is cold and the floorboards creak; Ryan likes it. The place is furnished but only sparingly. His one room holds a bed spread with threadbare blanket, a stove that will only work on a sunny day and an armchair that is cracked and cold. This is place feels like home to him. He sets the case upon the bed and places the carton of cigarettes he bought in town next to it. He doesn’t have need to unpack, so he doesn’t. He sets down in the armchair and lights his first cigarette.

He stays in that cottage for five days listening to the wind attempt to batter in his doors. He stays until he smokes his last cigarette and he reads each book over and over until his fingers are cramped and his mind is weary. He is hungry but it feels good, a reminder that he still has his humanity and he rises from the chair for the first time in hours. He can’t recall the date. He doesn’t bother to lock the door on his way out because he has nothing to steal. 

He walks the winding dirt path that leads from his tiny cottage by the sea into town. He only passes one other home on his way; he lives too far away for there to be many more. The house is painted canary yellow and it distracts Ryan for a moment. It’s almost like a giant sunflower, like a beacon of light amongst the desolate landscape. The walls are alive with ivy and hanging pots of flowers, the door framed with a perfect arch of roses. It looks like something torn straight from a postcard. Small puffs of smoke rise out of the chimney, light grey and barely visible. Ryan remembers from some high school science that this means the fire is out. The smoke reminds him of a ghost.

Ryan continuities down the path until he reaches the small town he supposes is where he lives now. He does not need to get a job. His father wasn’t good for much during his life, but at least he managed to make regular deposits into his son’s savings account. The lack of college debts leave Ryan free and wealthy enough to afford to spend the rest of the foreseeable future unemployed and happy on his own.

He had no paper in the cottage and had not been prepared to deface the books he’d brought as companionship. The pen found rolled underneath the armchair had enough life left to scrawl a grocery list upon his arm. Ryan often found himself forgetting to eat and going for days before he would be reminded by the twists of his stomach. He doesn’t need much, but feels like he can afford a few luxuries to make his cottage feel more like home. Paper, bread, milk, coffee. A new pen. 

He steps on every crack in the rounded stones that paves the streets he walks. The sun hangs low in the sky, a medallion on the neck of some golden god that casts light and makes everything it touches look like something. The windows of the little shops he passes are illuminated by the glow of the sun as it prepares to begin its descent into the horizon. He goes to the newsagent first, spending twenty minutes poring over the various designs of the notepads. He settles on a moss green journal, embossed with ivy and roses. 

It costs too much, but it leaves Ryan feeling excited for the first time in a while. He can’t wait to write in it. He hates himself for being so affected by a material possession. 

He stops into the green grocer to get the milk, only to find out that one can only purchase milk, or any dairy product for that matter, if one makes the trek to a farm on the outskirts of town in the opposite direction to his cottage. He decides that he doesn’t really need milk; he should take his coffee black anyway.

He purchases a large jar of freeze-dried coffee and a box of peppermints a year past expiry. He feels bad for the man who seems to own the grocery. He seems too young despite his beard, and he reminds Ryan of himself in the first few months of dating the woman he does not love. This man should not be in this town. Ryan concludes, as he hands over the small wad of green notes, that he must be staying for something, someone. A voice rings out from the back of the store, a deep voice calls out for the man who owns the grocery to come back and help him unload a delivery of pickles. Ryan catches the man in the eye and he realises who he must be staying for. 

He half expects the bakery to be closed by the time he completes his other errands. The sky is turning lilac and the first stars are threatening to appear, like the shards of glass from when he smashed the bathroom mirror during an argument with the woman he does not love. His knuckles sting as though the needle-like slivers are still imbedded in them. For all he knows, they might be.

He walks into the bakery and is immediately wrapped in the warm embrace of the smell of cooking bread and pastries. He closes his eyes. He inhales. Exhales. Opens his eyes to a man a foot from his face. Wants to take a step back. Doesn’t. 

The man must be the baker. He’s young too, and for a moment Ryan wonders why everyone in this town is so young. Surely, they have better places to be. The baker tells him he’s about to close but he can still sell Ryan the leftovers from today, would he like some apple tarts or is he just looking for a loaf of bread? Ryan isn’t thinking, really. He buys the bread and the tarts and a tray of angel cakes and the offcuts from some kind of twisted bread. His chest feels full and warm; he isn’t sure if it is from the sudden change in temperature.

He pays and lingers for a moment more. He doesn’t ask himself why he stands and memorises the details of the baker’s face. Brown eyes. Brunette. Full lips and a prominent brow. He swears to himself that he isn’t going to come back to this bakery every day for the rest of his days. He swears he won’t return everyday just for a glimpse of the baker. He swears to break every promise he makes to himself. He will cast his promises out to the sea; they will float amongst the freezing waters and crash into the cliffs his new home is built upon. Perhaps over the years they will wear away at his peace of mind in this town. Perhaps they will wash up along the shore, to be found by a couple walking their dog in the early morning. Ryan’s promises will make the front page because nobody has ever seen something so peculiar.

He walks along the path slowly. He’s lost deep within his thoughts, his fingers itching for the new journal and pen in his bag. He is so lost he doesn’t hear the shouting in the distance behind him.

He doesn’t hear the shouting for a second time.

He doesn’t get a chance to be deaf to the noise for a third time. The sounds are gone, replaced with a tapping upon his shoulder. He expects a violent thief and raises his hands to protect himself. He knows a thing or two about protecting himself. He is not, however, assaulted and left to bleed out amongst the overgrown grass. He peers through his skeletal fingers at the offending figure. 

It is the baker.

The baker babbles and Ryan listens. The baker talks to Ryan about how he lives in the cottage with the roses around the door. He talks to Ryan about how nobody has been living in the tiny cottage overlooking the angry sea for years. As he tells Ryan how he hopes they will get to know each other, but he really must be getting along home so he has enough time to cook a meal before bed. He mentions that bakers need to sleep early; they wake before the sun to prepare for the day they barely see.

Ryan listens to all this and takes it all in, and cannot help but wonder whether the baker really holds a nebula of stars in his irises or if he is just imagining things. While his imagination is good, he also has perfect vision. Due to this fact, he decides that the baker must be a tiny bit magical and must hold some piece of the universe in his very soul. Ryan says he should continue home as well. As the baker begins to walk to his rosy door and Ryan turns to continue along the lonely path, the meteorologically predictable happens. It begins to pour.

Without thinking, Ryan joins the baker in the sprint for the rosy door. They stand sheltered from the rain whilst the baker fumbles in his patchwork coat for something. He produces a rusty brass key. Places it in the lock. Turns it. Pushes against the door until it opens enough for Ryan to see the living room. He can only describe it as cosy. 

Ryan stands there and pretends to not be gazing into the baker’s home. He leans out to assess the rain and finds that it is still wet and thick. He produces the new journal from its paper bag to determine if any damage has been done. He doesn’t notice until he looks up that the baker is standing in this door. The baker takes in his lack of weather-appropriate clothing and his preciously dry journal and does the one thing Ryan does not expect.

He invites him in.


End file.
